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суббота, 23 августа 2014 г.

Turkey’s Failed Foreign Policy

By Aaron Stein

Geneva — In 2002, Turkey’s Justice and Development Party,
known as the A.K.P., turned to Ahmet Davutoglu, then an obscure academic, to
help craft its new foreign policy.

In 2009, he became foreign minister and was soon attempting
to resolve the region’s numerous crises. His foreign policy vision guided
Turkey’s approach to the Arab Spring uprisings and has served as the basis for
Turkey’s handling of the Syrian civil war.

With the Foreign Ministry under his stewardship, Turkey has
both been hailed as a democratic beacon for the Islamic world, and denounced as
an irresponsible regional power for allowing foreign fighters to transit its
territory en route to battlefields in Syria.

After initially receiving accolades, Mr. Davutoglu’s
decision-making has become a source of controversy in the West. And in the
Middle East, Turkey’s embrace of religiously conservative political movements
has run afoul of several Persian Gulf states and now Egypt, contributing to its
political isolation.

Now Mr. Davutoglu has risen to the premiership, filling the
shoes vacated by President-elect Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Unfortunately, we should
not expect any changes to Turkey’s failed foreign policy. Mr. Davutoglu
believes his vision will eventually be vindicated.

Mr. Davutoglu has argued for decades that Turkey should
embrace its Ottoman imperial past and use its unique geography to expand its
influence throughout the Balkans, the Middle East and Central Asia. This
“strategic depth” represented a departure from the country’s historic emphasis
on maintaining close ties with its NATO allies in the West. Mr. Davutoglu
envisioned that this policy, once implemented, would eventually result in
Turkey having “zero problems with neighbors.”

Turkey’s efforts in this regard have been decidedly
problematic. The country currently does not have an ambassador in Syria, Egypt
or Israel. Moreover, Ankara’s relations with the Gulf States are strained,
owing to the A.K.P.’s support of the Muslim Brotherhood. And diplomatic ties
with Iraq are near non-existent after Turkey opted to side with the Kurdistan
Regional Government and facilitate the export of Kurdish oil without Baghdad’s
approval.

The incoming prime minister’s approach is based on four
assumptions. First, he believes that the “era of nationalism” will come to an
end in the Middle East and a new crop of religiously conservative leaders will
emerge. Second, these new religiously conservative leaders will look to Turkey
— and more specifically, to the A.K.P. — as a source of political inspiration.
Third, wider religious conservatism will allow Turkey to expand its influence
via its shared religious identity with like-minded states. And fourth, the
West, especially America, has an interest in preventing democratic change in
the region.

These assumptions underpin the A.K.P.’s understanding of
recent regional events since the Arab uprisings. In the Arab world, the swift
overthrow of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, and
their subsequent replacement with political parties linked to the Muslim
Brotherhood, was seen as a confirmation of Mr. Davutoglu’s predictions. The
A.K.P. believed it could share its own experience with states undergoing
transitions to democracy.

However, Turkey’s efforts to help Egypt draft a secular
constitution were rejected by the Muslim Brotherhood when it was still in
power. Turkey’s eager attempts to influence the political process in Cairo were
viewed as an encroachment on Egyptian sovereignty and a potential source of
political weakness that opponents of the Brotherhood used to cast the party as
under foreign influence before forcibly ousting it. Turkey’s influence in Egypt
is now near zero.

The A.K.P., however, believes that its embrace of Muslim
Brotherhood-affiliated parties in Egypt, Iraq and Tunisia was politically
prudent, morally correct and pro-democratic, and that it will help strengthen
Turkish influence abroad. This approach is built on the idea that the A.K.P.
has overseen the transformation of Turkish domestic politics and has led the
way to making Turkey a more democratic country.

The same logic explains Turkey’s support for Hamas in the
Gaza Strip. The A.K.P. blames the West for isolating the militant group after
its election victory in 2006 and logically contends that this isolation is one
of the drivers of tumult in Palestine. However, Turkey’s efforts to mediate the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict have failed because it is no longer seen as a neutral
party. In much the same way, Turkey has chastised America for its handling of
the July 2013 coup in Egypt, and has lambasted the West for its reluctance to
intervene in Syria.

The A.K.P. views the Persian Gulf states as corrupt,
illegitimate and destined to fall. Mr. Davutoglu believes that the dynamics
that led to the Arab revolts are still present, and that Turkey is therefore
playing a “long game” with its support for the struggling Islamist forces in
Palestine and Egypt while the West hopes to restore the region’s autocratic
status quo ante by relying on a small cadre of corrupt political and military
elites who have lost all legitimacy.

For Mr. Davutoglu, these issues are black and white: Either
you support democracy, or you don’t. Turkey is on the “right side of history”
and is standing up for democratic change in the region. The United States and
Europe are not.

These assumptions are flawed. First, they assume that a
shared religious identity will be able to transcend nationalism. Turkey’s recent
history in Egypt suggests that this is easier said than done. Second, the
nationalism that Mr. Davutoglu predicts will fail has proven to be far more
resilient than initially anticipated. Third, in states described as being in
Turkey’s “natural hinterland,” these nationalist movements are mostly based on
a rejection of colonial rule — including that of the Ottomans. Turkey’s efforts
to expand its influence, therefore, will not be so easy.

Yet the A.K.P. is undeterred. It believes in its own
strategic and moral rectitude and views its recent troubles as temporary. As
Mr. Davutoglu assumes the premiership, Turkey is likely to continue pursuing
the flawed foreign policy he has conceived and constructed.

Aaron Stein is an associate fellow at Britain’s Royal United
Services Institute.

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YOUTH PEACE PLAN OF GEORGIA

This publication is produced within the framework of the project - ‘‘Support Democratic Participation of Young Women in Building Peace and Stability in Georgia’’ implemented in Georgia by International Network for Civil Development - INCD in partnership with Young Women Experts’ Network for Peace and Security (YWEPS) and with the financial support of the Embassy of Canada through Fund for Local Initiatives (CFLI).